Джек Макдевитт - Omega

THE OMEGAS ROUTINELY hurled lightning bolts at perpendiculars. Any object designed with right angles, or sharp departures from nature’s natural arcs, could expect to become a target.

It had seemed an old wives’ tale when the stories first came back. Collingdale recalled that the scientific community, almost to a person, had scoffed at the reports. The notion that clouds could somehow navigate on their own seemed absurd. That they could bump up to high velocities more absurd still. Most had not accepted the idea until the one approaching Moonlight, the Brinkmann Cloud, had changed course, begun to slow down, and headed insystem. That was four years ago.

The claims had been so outlandish that nobody who cared about his reputation had even tested them. But once the Brinkmann showed its ability to navigate, researchers had come, and an attempt to explain the impossible had begun. It had begun with the discovery of nanos in samples taken from the omega.

Were the clouds natural objects? Or artificial? Did the universe disapprove of intelligent life? Or was there a psychotic force in existence somewhere? Or, as his parents had thought, was God sending a warning?

“You coming, Dave?”

They’d cut their way into the base of the northeastern tower, and Jerry Riley was standing aside, leaving for Dave the honor of being first person to enter the structure. He clapped a few shoulders, strode down between banks of dugout snow, paused at the entrance, put his head in, and flashed his lamp around.

The interior was as large as New York’s main terminal. The ceiling soared several stories. Benches were scattered throughout the area. Sleek metal columns supported balconies and galleries. Alcoves that might once have been shops were set into the walls. And there was a statue.

He took a few steps inside, scarcely daring to breathe. They knew what the natives looked like because they’d found remains. But they’d never seen any depictions of them. No sculptures, no graphics, no engravings. How odd it had seemed that a species so given to art had given them no copies of its own image.

The others filed in and spread out around him, all enamored of the statue. Jerry raised his lamp slowly, almost reverently, and played the light across it. It was a feline. Claws were replaced by manipulative digits, but the snout and fangs remained. Narrow eyes, in front. A predator. But it wore a hat, rather like an artist’s beret, angled down over one eye. It was decked out in trousers, a shirt with long fluffy sleeves, and a jacket that would not have looked out of place in Boston. A bandanna was tied around its neck. And it sported a cane.

One of the women giggled.

Collingdale couldn’t suppress a smile himself, and yet despite its comic aspect, the creature displayed a substantial degree of dignity.

There was an inscription on the base, a single line of characters, executed in a style reminiscent of Old English. It was probably a single word. “Its name?” someone suggested.

Collingdale wondered what the subject had done. A Washington? A Churchill? A Francis Bacon? Perhaps a Mozart.

“The architect,” said Riley, short and generally cynical. “This is the guy who built the place.” Riley didn’t like being out here, but needed this last mission to establish his bona fides with the University of Something-or-Other back home. He’d be an inspiration to the students.

It was odd how the intangibles carried over from species to species. Dignity. Majesty. Power. Whether it was seen in an avian or a monkey, or something between, it always had the same look.

His commlink vibrated against his wrist. It was Alexandra, who’d arrived two days before on the al-Jahani with a cargo of nukes, which she’d been instructed to use in an effort to blow away the cloud. Nobody believed it could be done, but no other course of action offered itself. The cloud was simply too big, thirty-four thousand kilometers in diameter. A few nukes would have no effect.

“Yes, Alex. What’ve you got?”

“It’s still slowing down, Dave. And it’s still on target.”

“Okay.”

“It’s coming in on your side of the world. Looks as if it’s homed in on your city. We’re going to set the bombs off tonight. In about six hours.”

The omega was slowing down by firing jets of dust and hydrogen forward. Riley thought it might also be twisting gravity, but there was no evidence yet to support that idea. The only thing that mattered was that, however it was managing things, the cloud was going to arrive right on top of Moonlight.

THEY WANDERED FOR hours through the underground. There was a network of smaller chambers connected to the large area. They found an endless number of chairs, bowls, radios, monitors, plumbing fixtures, conference tables. Artifacts they couldn’t identify. Much of it was in surprisingly good condition. There were boxes of plastic disks, undoubtedly memory storage units. But electronic records were fragile. Early civilizations carved their history onto clay tablets, which lasted virtually forever. More advanced groups went for paper, which had a reasonable shelf life, provided it was stored in a dry place and not mishandled. But electronic data had no staying power. They had not yet been able to recover a single electronic record.

There were some books, which had not been stored properly. Nevertheless, they gathered them into plastic containers. They’d been in the area several weeks, but there was a special urgency about this visit. The cloud was coming. Anything they did not carry off today might not survive.

The walls were covered with engravings. Collingdale assigned one of his people to record as many of them as she could. Some of it was symbolic, much was graphic, usually with bucolic themes, leaves and stems and branches, all of which, when the sun came back, might grow on this world again.

Stairways and shafts rose high into the structure and descended to lower floors, which were encased in ice. “But that might be a huge piece of good luck,” Collingdale told Ava MacAvoy, who looked unusually attractive in the reflected light. “It should survive the cloud, whatever happens to the rest of the city.”

They went back outside. It was time to leave, but Collingdale delayed, taking more pictures, recording everything. Ava and Riley and the others had to pull him away.

The cloud was setting by then, and Collingdale wished it was possible to halt the planet on its axis, keep the other side between the omega and the towers. Hide the city.

Damn you.

He stood facing it, as if he would have held it off by sheer will.

Ava took his arm. “Come on, Dave,” she said. “It’s getting late.”

THEY RETREATED TO the dome, which had served as their base for the better part of a month. A lander waited beside it. The dome was small, cramped, uncomfortable. They’d brought out too many people, and could in fact have brought several shiploads more. Everyone had wanted to come to Moonlight. The Academy, under time pressure, had tried to accommodate the requests as best it could. It should have said no. That was partly Collingdale’s own fault for not demanding they cut things off.

They’d filled the dome with artifacts and shipped them topside to the al-Jahani, which now carried a treasure trove of mugs and plates and table lamps and electronic gear, and materials far more esoteric, objects whose function defied analysis. Other pieces were now being loaded. There was more than the lander could handle, but they’d stacked the rest in the dome, hoping that it would be safe there.

Collingdale waited until everybody else was on board—there were seven of them, excluding the pilot—took a last look around, and climbed in. The omega was almost down. Only a black ridge of clouds was visible in the west, and a few streaked plumes soared above the horizon. The pilot started the engines, and the lander rose. Nobody said much.